


Right on Target

by derryderrydown



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Teen Titans, Young Justice
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryderrydown/pseuds/derryderrydown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new archer in town and Cissie's not sure that's a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right on Target

"There's Cassie!" Doreen squealed, pointing at the TV screen where the Teen Titans were battling some kind of giant oozing monster. "Ow! Oh, man, that's gotta _hurt_."

The rest of the girls flinched in sympathy and Cissie didn't bother pointing out that Cassie had flown back _with_ the blow, depleting its force to the point where even a non-meta wouldn't have been injured. She was too busy watching the yellow-cloaked girl.

The girl grinned as she sent an arrow straight into the creature's hand, making it drop its sparking metal club, and Cissie frowned. What sort of idiot wore a huge cloak when they fought with a _bow?_ Even the first Arrowette costume had just had a little cape, which stood no chance of obstructing her shooting. There was no way either of the Green Arrows would have designed a costume with a cloak like that, which meant the girl had made it up herself, which meant she hadn't paid proper attention to the requirements of the role.

Which didn't bode well.

"Who's that?" Yvette asked.

"She must be new," Sally said. "We'll have to ask Cassie for details when she gets back this evening. Has she said anything to you, Ciss?" Sally didn't look away from the screen as she spoke.

"Speedy," Cissie said and her voice broke. She cleared her throat and spoke again, louder. "She's called Speedy."

"Wasn't Speedy from the old days?" Doreen said. "And he was a boy. I'm sure he was a boy."

"This is the new one." Cissie ignored the comforting pressure of Greta's hand on hers. "She's been working in Star City for a while but she's only just joined the Titans."

"She's good," Yvette said, as Speedy somersaulted out of the way of the creature's lashing tail, just in time for Bart to zip in and wrap something round its legs.

Flashy, Cissie thought. It would have been more effective to just run. But then Speedy's hood wouldn't have fallen back to show off long blonde hair. Cissie felt her mouth tighten. "I'm going to practise," she said and practically ran out of the room.

* * *

Cissie knew where Cassie kept Arrowette's old bow.

She wasn't _supposed_ to know but there was only a limited amount of storage space in their room. It was difficult for Cassie to hide the notes Kon had given her, let alone a fifty-five-pound bow.

So Cissie pulled the case out from behind the protective camouflage of shoes, plush toys and school notes under Cassie's bed and blew the worst of the dust off it. Cassie would know she'd had it out but Cissie decided that was allowed. Cassie would be more likely to worry if Cissie _didn't_ freak out over the sudden appearance of a new archer on the team.

Cissie rested her hand on the case for a moment, then tossed it, unopened, on to her bed. It would be stupid to use it, she knew. Too much chance of too many things she didn't want to think about.

She quickly changed into her practice gear and picked the case up. To push it back under Cassie's bed. That was all.

Really. That was all.

She wasn't Arrowette. Didn't want to be Arrowette.

In the end, she took the Arrowette bow and her competition bow down to the far field. Nobody came down here unless it was to watch her shoot. And nobody would want to watch _her_ while _Speedy_ was prancing around on the television, getting a kick from the thrill of being a costumed hero.

Stupid girl.

Cissie sighed and started her normal warm-up routine. Bonnie would never forgive her if she pulled a muscle through stupidity. More importantly, she would never forgive herself.

And if, at the end, she moved into exercises that were more about acrobatics than archery, it didn't mean she was committing herself to anything.

The procedure of getting ready to shoot was comforting. The low-friction armguard -- dull black, scratched and like nothing Arrowette would have used -- was worn in just the right places. Then the new orange chestguard and her battered Cordovan finger tab. And, finally, the camouflage quiver that Cassie and Greta had pitched in to buy her for her   
birthday. Greta had let slip that Cassie had wanted to get a black one to go with the rest of Cissie's gear. Cissie had immediately ordered the bright orange chestguard and binned her black one.

She normally started off at the sixty-meter mark. Today, she went right back to the ninety. For the first time, she noticed that each mark had worn spots precisely where her feet went and she smiled.

It was all as familiar as her bow. Her calluses fit it now, even though it had felt _wrong_ when she first started using it. Too heavy, for a start, and she'd had to keep reminding herself that she only needed enough stamina for the competition, not for a fight. And then there was the strangeness of adapting to a compound and the deceptive pull. The quiver finally felt comfortable too, though it had felt loose for months, as though she had to keep reminding herself that she couldn't somersault without it flying loose and arrows going everywhere.

But she didn't do somersaults with her archery any more, so it didn't matter.

The first six arrows hit the bullseye with a satisfying thud.

The next six did the same.

And the next.

On the fourth arrow of the next end, she started wondering if the new Speedy shot this well and she deliberately Robin Hood-ed the last two. Which, admittedly, was a total waste of two very expensive, very shattered carbon arrows.

Well, they would be expensive if they weren't included in her sponsorship deal.

It was all very well to hit a rampaging monster that was trying to rip your arm off but that was nothing like the tension of a serious competition. Especially when you hadn't been with a team long enough to care about your teammates so it didn't really matter if one _them_ got their arm ripped off instead.

And _that_ was the thought she'd been trying to avoid.

She sighed and slowly unstrung her bow. She took as long as she could about putting it away but, eventually, it was done. And she couldn't put off the decision any longer.

She rested her hand on the Arrowette case. She wasn't committing herself to anything. She was just... curious. That was all. She kept telling herself that as she opened the case.

She'd remembered the Arrowette bow as being fancier, with gold curlicues and sparkly bits and whatever else her mother had thought a good idea at the time. Of course, that had been with the first costume. By the time she'd ... quit ... she'd tamed it down to a plain fifty-five-pound recurve bow. The _quiver_ was fancier, with the extra straps and the closed cell foam to anchor the arrows.

If she was going to do this, she'd better get on and do it.

So she stripped her own quiver, armguard and tab and replaced them with Arrowette's. The chestguard had always been built into the costume, so she kept her own. Strung the bow, tested the pull.

And she was just delaying now. She'd _made_ the decision.

The first arrow hit the black. The next was right on the line between red and blue. The third just scraped into the bullseye. Fourth, fifth and sixth followed and it was a relief when she could put the bow down.

She'd thought... She'd thought that, if she wanted to, she could step right back into it. Maybe a bit of time to polish the rust off her acrobatics but she'd never considered her _archery_ could have deteriorated.

Of course it hadn't. She just wasn't used to the lighter weight of the Arrowette bow. And she'd maybe started to rely on the extra power of her compound.

If she _did_ go back to Arrowette, she could carry on using a compound. Sure, she'd switched to a compound when... When she'd changed to the Dark Arrowette uniform. But that didn't mean compounds were the mark of a supervillain. Arsenal used a compound and he wasn't a villain.

This time, she pretended the target was a monster -- a strangely stationary monster -- attacking Cassie and Bart.

All six arrows hit the bullseye but she'd been so slow about it that Bart would have taken the monster out before the first arrow had hit. In fact, he'd probably have caught her arrows so they didn't even hit.

She sighed and flung herself into a somersault, shooting as she went.

At one time, she would have Robin Hooded it without even thinking.

Now? There were only five arrows in the target.

She unstrung the Arrowette bow and put it away, along with all the gear. When she got back to her room, she nearly pushed it back under Cassie's bed.

In the end, she pushed it under her own.

* * *

Cissie was still lying awake in the dark when Cassie slipped in through the door. Cissie flicked the light on and watched Cassie blink rapidly. Cassie didn't look injured but there was a burn mark down the left leg of her pants and she was walking with a certain deliberation.

"How was the weekend?" Cissie asked and she was trying to sound normal, she really was, but Cassie gave her one of those looks that meant she was trying to figure out what Cissie was _really_ saying.

"Pretty quiet, other than today. Which is good because it gave us a chance to train with Speedy before we had to go out into the field with her." Cassie started stripping her uniform and paused to sniff at it. "Ew. That thing _stank_. I'm going to have to shower before bed."

Cissie shook her head. "It's way past eleven." She assumed a mock stern expression. "And you know that it's inconsiderate to the other girls to shower when they're trying to sleep."

"Well, you're the one who's going to have to sleep in the same room as me," Cassie said as she pulled off the rest of her uniform.

Cissie picked at her nails. "So, what's the new Speedy like?"

"She's not as good as Arrowette," Cassie said immediately.

Cissie didn't say anything for a while, thinking about her own performance that evening. She didn't speak until Cassie was changing into her pajamas. "But what's she like as a person?"

Cassie shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. She seems a bit hard, you know? As though she doesn't want to let us know anything about her. Like Robin was at first but... Hard."

"So you don't know her history? Her name? Is she Green Arrow's daughter?"

Cassie wriggled into her bed. "I don't think so. Apparently Green Arrow told my mom that she's _like_ a daughter to him. But she seems to live with him." She blinked and stared at Cissie, eyes wide. "You don't think she's his _girlfriend_, do you?"

"Not if he said she was like a daughter to him." Cissie frowned. "I mean, I know he's meant to be a bit of a lech but I've never heard he was, you know. Weird about it."

Cassie settled back down. "Yeah, you're probably right. But I don't really know what else I can tell you. She spent most of her time with the guys."

There was something in Cassie's voice. "Kon?"

"You know what Kon's like about blonde archers," Cassie said and thumped her pillow before turning the light off.

"Is she pretty?" Cissie asked.

"I suppose so. If you like that kind of thing. I'm -- I'm tired, Ciss. I need to get some sleep."

Cissie took a deep breath and shut her eyes.

"Cissie?" Cassie said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"We'd never say no to having two archers on the team. If you're thinking of coming back."

"I've quit," Cissie said automatically.

"I know. But -- if you _were_ thinking of it. Hypothetically."

"Yeah," Cissie said and shut her eyes. "Hypothetically."

* * *

That night, she dreamed she was chasing a figure through a forest. A yellow-cloaked figure, who turned and held her hands up and stared at Cissie with Doc Marcy's eyes.

And Cissie drew her bow and aimed the arrow straight at the figure's heart and her alarm clock went before she knew whether or not she let it loose.

* * *

In Biology, Cassie seized Cissie's arm. "You've taken it!" she whispered, eyes alight with pleasure. "You've taken your Arrowette bow! Are you coming back?"

Cissie shook herself free. "No," she said. "I just..." She looked out of the window, at the woods where she'd come so close to crossing the line. Where she _had_ crossed the line. Just because Kon had hauled her back, it didn't mean she'd never actually made the step. "I don't know, Cass."

"That's a maybe," Cass said and let out a muffled squeal of delight. "Oh, Cissie, it would be _so good_ to have you back. You won't believe how much Bart's changed. But he's still Bart, really and truly, and sometimes you want to hug him and kick him at the same time. And you'll love Gar, you really will."

"I didn't say I'm coming back," Cissie said. She glanced around. "Look, we can't talk about it here. Wait till lunch."

"Sure," Cassie said, still beaming. "What are you going to do for a costume? Because, really, we've all changed except Robin and-- Okay, shutting up."

* * *

At lunchtime, Cissie hid.

She and Cassie didn't have any lessons together that afternoon and, straight after classes finished, she managed to sneak up to their room and get both bows without Cassie spotting her. The bottom field wasn't the greatest hiding place but it was the only place she could shoot the Arrowette bow.

She didn't bother even stringing her competition bow.

The Arrowette gear felt worryingly familiar. But it wasn't surprising, she told herself. She'd worn it for years. She'd only worn the new stuff for a fraction of the time. But despite the familiarity, she still wasn't shooting as well as she needed to.

Would need to if she was going back, that was. But she wasn't going back.

This was just... Insurance. Made sense to be prepared. Just in case something happened.

Her arms were aching when she finally put the bow down. The target was so full of arrows that she was having trouble finding a bare spot to aim at but at least every arrow was hitting where it should. Perhaps not with the precision of her competition bow but hitting.

She unstrung the bow and swung into the familiar gymnastics stretches, working up to the practice routines that her mother had drilled into her. Somersault led to handstand led to twist led to the perfect shooting position.

"I thought you'd be here."

Cissie landed perfectly and turned to face Cassie. "I wasn't hiding," she said.

Cassie had her arms folded and she was looking over Cissie's shoulder to the neat grouping of arrows at the center of the target. "I'm sorry I pushed you. I mean, I know why you quit and everything. It's just... We all miss you. And having a new archer around." She shrugged. "It brings it all home."

"Cassie." Cissie's throat was dry. "Can I come to the Tower with you next weekend?"

"Seriously?" Cassie's eyes were wide and she was obviously having trouble keeping herself from hugging Cissie. "You're doing this for you, right? Not because we're -- _I'm_ \-- all desperately needy and stuff?"

"I'm not promising anything," Cissie said and all her plans solidified. "I just need to speak to Speedy."

"Sure." Cassie nodded enthusiastically. "Sure. Totally. No pressure. No pressure at all. But, man, you are going to _love_ the Tower!"

* * *

Cissie spent every spare moment of the rest of the week down at the bottom field with her Arrowette bow, drilling herself harder than her mother ever had.

By the end of the week, she wasn't as good as she had been. She had a sneaking suspicion she was still a damn sight better than Speedy, though.

* * *

Cassie had offered to fly Cissie to San Francisco. Cissie had pointed out that traveling across a continent while dangling from her arms wouldn't be the most comfortable way to go and she'd just take a commercial flight.

Cassie had insisted on picking her up at the airport and flying her across to the Tower, though. Cissie was rather glad she had. Titans Tower had always been iconic and it made her feel less of an interloper to arrive there by air.

"Did you tell the others?" she asked.

Cassie shook her head, grinning widely. "Just Vic. Cyborg. He had to clear the security systems to pass you."

"Okay." Cissie took a deep breath and adjusted the bags over her shoulder. "Let's go." And she followed Cassie down into Titans Tower.

Cissie had a brief glimpse of a room laid out like a particularly well-appointed classroom. Tim was studying something on his laptop. Kon was talking to a blonde girl -- _Speedy_. And Bart was --

Bart was wrapped round her, hugging her, and then her bags disappeared and he was back. "I put your bow in your locker," he said breathlessly, "and your bags are in your room and why didn't you _say_ you were coming back because we would have had a big party and --" He paused. "We could still have a party! I'll decorate and --"

"I've missed you, scarecrow," Cissie said and ruffled his hair.

"And that is _totally_ unfair," Bart said, "because I have too got a brain."

"Wouldn't know it from watching you in action," Kon said and Cissie had to look twice to reassure herself it _was_ Kon. Because there was the new uniform and haircut and he'd _grown_ and, more importantly, there was something about his expression. But he was grinning at her. "I _told_ you you'd be back."

"We don't know that she is," Tim said quietly from beside her and Cissie jumped. She'd forgotten 'silent' was Tim's default setting. "This could very well be a social visit." She hadn't forgotten the way Tim could somehow meet your eyes even when he was wearing the mask. "Cissie?"

Cissie glanced around the familiar faces and felt an ache. She could _have_ this again. She could _belong_.

She shrugged. "Let's see how it goes."

"I get the feeling I should know who you are." Cissie looked around to find she was being watched by Beast Boy. Gar Logan. He grinned, showing pointed teeth. "And I think I'd really _like_ to."

Cassie rolled her eyes. "This is Gar. He's shameless. Gar, Cissie King-Jones."

"Oh, the archer chick." His grin widened. "I must have been really good in a previous life. _Two_ gorgeous blonde archer chicks."

Cissie had a horrible feeling her face showed her thoughts because everybody suddenly went quiet.

Cassie cleared her throat. "Cissie, this is Speedy. Speedy, Cissie."

Cassie had been right when she described Speedy as 'hard', Cissie thought. Hard, tough, seen-it-all. And perhaps she _could_ safely leave her friends with Speedy. But then there was the _cloak_ that made it pretty plain Speedy was new to fighting as an archer. "Hi," she said and she hadn't actually meant it to come out that cold.

"Hi," Speedy said. She was probably just fidgeting with her bow out of nerves but it still made Cissie uncomfortable, ready for an attack.

"I'll show you round," Bart said. "Come and see my room! It's really cool and you can see right out over the city. And then I'll show you my skateboard ramp and you can try it out if you want."

Cissie let herself be tugged out of the room.

* * *

Cissie got up early and headed to the gym. Speedy was already there, dressed in plain sweats and without her mask. Cissie nodded to her and started her own warm-up.

"I figured it out," Speedy said without pausing in her reps. "You're that cheerleader archer. Arrowette."

"I was," Cissie said. "I quit."

"Why?"

"You've got no right to ask."

Speedy rolled off the bench and suddenly she was right in Cissie's face. "I've got every damn right. You quit. And now, just because there's another archer around and you're feeling _threatened_, you have to come rolling around here, talking about coming back and making sure everybody knows I'm second-best. Well, _I'm_ the one trained by Green Arrow. _Both_ Green Arrows. And that means _you're_ second-best, gold medal or not. Get it?"

Cissie stood up straight and looked down at Speedy. "Two rounds. First, standard competition. Second, battle conditions. You in?"

Speedy narrowed her eyes. "You're on," she said after a moment and strode out of the gym.

Cissie stared after her. This was what she'd been aiming for -- a chance to test Speedy. She swallowed and concentrated on her warm-up. So why did she feel so lousy?

* * *

The first round was easy enough to arrange. Cyborg seemed to have designed the Tower on the assumption that an archer would be joining them, sooner or later.

"Standard FITA outdoor round?" Cissie asked, ignoring the presence of Cassie, Bart, Kon and Cyborg. And probably Robin but she couldn't see him.

"And that is?" Speedy raised an eyebrow. "I don't do competitions. I do the important stuff. That you _quit_ so you could get a shiny medal."

Suddenly, Cissie didn't feel so bad about this. "Thirty-six arrows at seventy, sixty, fifty and thirty meters for a total of 144 arrows. You use the standard 122 centimeter target at seventy and sixty and the --" She stopped. "Let's just go for six arrows each at ninety, seventy and fifty meters."

"Sounds good," Speedy said and turned away, leaving Cissie to get ready.

By the time Cissie had strung her bow -- her competition bow -- Speedy was waiting.

"A compound?" Speedy said. "Are you not strong enough for a recurve or something?"

"Tell it to Arsenal," Cissie said more calmly than she felt.

"I do. Told him yesterday, actually."

Cissie gritted her teeth and decided she wasn't going to bother taking it easy on Speedy after all. Perhaps, one of these days, she'd do something about finding out if her mother had been telling the truth and Green Arrow really _was_ her father.

But she was never going to let herself wonder about what her life would be like if he was and he'd taken an interest and she'd been part of the Arrow-family and --

She wasn't going to think about it. She was just going to kick Speedy's ass.

She strapped on her wristguard. "Ready?"

"Sure," Speedy said with a casualness that Cissie didn't believe.

But now she had to completely forget about Speedy and concentrate on her own performance. She breathed deeply as she took up her position on the ninety meter mark. And then she raised her bow and she didn't _need_ to think any more because everything slipped automatically into place. Time slowed until the arrows seemed to flow away from her and there was no possibility of them landing anywhere but right in the center of the bullseye.

When she'd shot all six, she looked at Speedy's target. Four in the bullseye, one in the red, one in the blue.

She'd expected to outperform Speedy in this round. This was what she'd been _doing_ for the past year, after all. She just hadn't expected it to be quite so obvious. What was Green Arrow thinking to let Speedy out on the streets when she could barely hit the target? How could she be trusted to look after Cissie's friends?

At seventy meters, Speedy performed even worse, with only three arrows ending up in the bullseye. When Cissie looked at her, she was tense and her mouth was tight. Perhaps she was finally starting to understand that competitive archery wasn't a soft option, Cissie thought. Except she probably wasn't bright enough.

At fifty meters, Speedy pulled it back enough to get five in the bullseye but she was so slow that she would have been outside the time limit in a competition.

"Ready for the next round?" Speedy asked. She drew a deep breath and tilted her head. "You know, the one about _real_ problems."

Cissie had been right. She _wasn't_ bright enough. Without a word, Cissie unstrung her competition bow and tucked it away in its case with an affectionate pat.

"Because if this was a _real_ battle, you wouldn't have half an hour's warning to change your clothes and do your hair and jewelry and whatever else you had to do before you could go out as Arrowette."

Cissie looked up and smiled. "That's the point. Cyborg's going to spring the training drill on us when we're not expecting it."

Speedy's head whipped round. "Vic?"

Claiming deliberate closeness, there. That was going to cost her. But Cyborg nodded at Speedy and smiled reassuringly.

Cissie dropped into a stretch. "So now we just wait. Have the Green Arrows taught you about patience, Speedy?"

Evidently not, because Speedy unstrung her bow with a jerk and left the room. Cyborg glanced back at Cissie, then followed Speedy.

"Bart," Cissie called and Bart was right there, vibrating with eagerness.

"I wish you hadn't picked a fight with Speedy," Bart said. "Because she's pretty cool, really. And I get that you'd feel insecure about there being another archer on the team now and everything but --"

"It's not that," Cissie said and she wasn't _totally_ lying. "But I need you to do something."

Bart cocked his head and looked at her with those big, orange eyes, that seemed weirdly vulnerable without the goggles.

Cissie explained.

* * *

It was difficult to relax, which was annoying because the whole point was to prove that she could easily slip into the team. That she was _already_ part of the team. She was half-expecting the alarm to go at any moment, and then there was the way that Speedy kept staring at her and Kon kept glancing between the two of them. And she never actually _caught_ Robin looking at either one of them but she had no doubt he was looking just as much as Kon.

And Bart and Cassie just looked _anxious_. And she didn't even want to think about Cyborg and Beast Boy, who had every right to hate her for marching in and single-handedly destroying their team.

"Want to check out the pool?" Cassie said awkwardly. "It's better than the one at YJ."

"Sure!" Ouch. The perkiness was overdone. "Just let me get my swimsuit."

"Speedy?" Cassie asked and she sounded even more awkward.

Speedy looked up from her homework. "No, thanks. Too much work to do."

There. Cyborg had looked at Beast Boy and now she knew the drill was going to be called while she was in the pool. Crafty. And it meant they wanted Speedy to win. Cissie narrowed her eyes. What they _wanted_ and what was going to _happen_ were totally unrelated. Besides, she'd made her plans.

* * *

She was halfway changed into her bikini when a ear-splitting siren went off. A second later, Bart vibrated through her door, clutching the bags that had been in her locker. "I brought your -- OH!" She just had time to see him turn bright red before he dropped the bags and shot back through her door. "Um, let me know when you're changed."

She didn't have time to dawdle, even with Bart's help, so it was into the red bodysuit, on with the gold domino, gloves, bracers and boots and it was only when she looked in the mirror that she realized she was pretty much wearing Speedy's outfit. She paused for a moment then removed the domino and pulled on Arrowette's old red mask before strapping on her quiver and stringing her bow.

Cissie supposed she should thank her mother for this one as well. _Make more than one costume. The toy companies might want a Future Arrowette._

"Bar --"

He was back through the door. "Readytogo?"

"Ye --"

She was always kind of glad that being vibrated _through_ things happened too fast for her to really notice it. But now she was at the entrance to the training simulator, where Cyborg, Cassie, Kon and Robin were waiting. She just had time to lean casually against the wall before Speedy ran round the corner, cloak flying.

"Took your time, didn't you?" Cissie couldn't help saying.

Speedy simply glared and Bart shifted his feet, looking uncomfortable.

Cyborg cleared his throat. "The drill starts the moment you enter the training simulator." Cissie nocked an arrow. "Any questions?"

"Yes." Cissie drew her bow. "Is your security always this lousy?"

And her arrow was flying towards Bart before she'd even finished speaking.

She had a second arrow nocked.

She was drawing her bow, selecting her target.

Nobody was _moving._ She was about to kill them all and nobody was _moving_.

Her bow was drawn, her arrow aimed at Kon. Any moment now she'd _shoot_, they had to know that.

And then there was a kick juddering right up her arm as an arrow landed in her bow and the feeling of the bow _changed_ and maybe it was actually slow or maybe it was just because the whole world was slow but she could _see_ the crack spreading through the upper limb of her bow and the feel of the bow was changing all the time, getting sloppy and _dead_ and she just had time to release the string before the entire thing fell to pieces.

When she looked up, Speedy had an arrow aimed at her shoulder. Cassie's eyes were wide and she -- she was _crying_ but she had her lasso out and she was ready to fight. Kon was at her side, Robin next to him. Cyborg had his cannon aimed at her.

Cissie held her hands up. "I surrender."

But then Bart was standing in front of her, waving his hands. "Itwasa_plan!_" he said. "We planned it all! I knew! She's not evil!"

Only Kon changed his position, landing lightly on the floor.

"Really and truly," Bart said. "We planned it all and Cissie would never hurt anybody!"

Kon cleared his throat and didn't look at her but, after a moment, the others shifted into slightly less aggressive stances. Only Speedy didn't move. "Why?" she demanded.

"Why didn't you shoot my arrow out of the air?" Cissie asked. "It could have hit Bart."

Speedy snorted. "Even if Bart was _asleep_ he could move fast enough to get out of the way of an arrow. More important to disarm you."

Cissie shut her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, she pulled her mask off and dropped it on to the remains of her bow. "You win, Speedy."

Speedy glanced around suspiciously. "This was the drill?"

"Not that I know of," Cyborg said and folded his arms. "Cissie?" His voice was heavy.

"My drill." Cissie unfastened her quiver and let it fall. "Not yours." She shrugged. "I needed to know I could trust Speedy with my friends."

"I let you shoot Bart," Speedy said, sounding confused. But she relaxed her bow a little.

"Only because you trusted him to look after himself." Cissie grinned. "He can get close to light speed. An arrow's _slow_, right, Bart?"

Bart beamed. "Three hundred feet per second. Nowhere close to even the speed of _sound_."

"So you haven't gone all Dark Arrowette again?" Kon said.

Cissie dropped her bracers. "Arrowette? Who's that?"

* * *

Back at Elias on Sunday night, Cassie sat cross-legged on her bed and stared at Cissie.

"What?"

"What would you have done if Speedy hadn't passed?"

Cissie shrugged.

"Would you have come back?"

Cissie sighed. "I don't know," she said and turned the light off.

"I kind of wish Speedy _hadn't_ passed," Cassie said quietly.

Cissie pretended not to hear her.


End file.
